Congregation

When viewed as a group or at a distance, the hand-carved faces in Congregation may appear very similar. But upon closer inspection, each clearly has its own semblance. Moe says, “Making Congregation was a way of making sense of the space around me . . . I was able to make [these] anywhere,” throughout the U.S. and at home in South Africa. Each head varies in color and texture, depending on the region and country where Moe mixed concrete from local sand.

Congregation evolved out of Moe’s daily practice, and the aggregate marks the artist’s movements through space and time, much like a personal journal. The heads resemble a collection of delicate, freshly excavated ancient artifacts, though they are in fact weighty and of this era. Unlike Moe’s large-scale sculptures such as Collapse I in the Museum Park, which have an air of fallen monuments, these miniatures seem to have risen from the earth, newly animated and engaged with one another.

tags: repetition, identity, interdependence, order, part/whole, place, geography